Picked it up on Tuesday and am completely, totally in love. After a solid 5 hours or so of play, here are my random mini impressions:

1) The world is incredible. The feel of everything is very Dark Souls but nothing looks rehashed so far. I'm spending lots of time just poking around every corner trying to find shortcuts/loot/etc.2) Combat is a bit different now as far as timing and animations. The controls are all the same so it will be familiar to past fans, but you will be relearning how to deal with enemies.3) When you die now, you lose a small bit of your max health (it can eventually get as low as 50% of your original HP). You also become more and more "hollowed" as this occurs. You need to use a certain object to restore your humanity and return to 100% health. Not sure how I feel about this mechanic yet. As the items are not super common to find, and are expensive to buy, there's a definite risk/reward thing going on. i will say it's not as bad as I originally thought it would be when reading about it. I also suspect that when you get further into the game, buying these items will become much less of a hassle. It also is a small slice of health per death, so if you are careful and don't die too much, it won't be a huge consideration very often.3) The story looks good so far. It does a great job of integrating lots of these mechanics into the lore but has that same Dark Souls ambiguity about it. You'll be piecing together what's going on from lots of different sources just like you did before.4) The menu system is worlds better this time around. Much easier to get around and compare things. There are also nice tool tips and indicators to let you know what things do and what they affect.5) The starting area seems to ease you into game play better than the asylum did, and they don't throw a boss at you so quickly either. There are a few uber tough enemies hidden away so you can try your luck against those, but it's all optional.6) I haven't met my first boss yet, so can't say how those will work out. I'm a pokey player, so don't assume it will take you the same +5 hours to get to the first boss.7) Fast travel FTW!!! You can now fast travel between bonfires immediately upon activating them.

In summary, this is DEFINITELY a Dark Souls game. There's enough differences in here so it feels like a true sequel, but it's not a different type of game. Best thing I can say is that it feels like playing Dark Souls for the first time all over again. If you are a fan, this is a MUST BUY. 10/10

I'm loving it a whole lot. Really has grabbed me and in general, I like the changes. I don't like how you can't see how a weapon or piece of armor from a merchant will raise your stats. Really dumb thing to not include. Not like I usually buy that stuff from merchants as I usually rely on drops, but just seems a huge oversight. The game definitely has that Dark Souls addiction pulling at me. I went with a magic user this time, which I hadn't done in the previous two games. Will be interesting to see how things differ.

Oh, one change which I am not so sure about yet as I haven't run into it, but thinking about it, not sure I like is that enemies will only respawn so many times. So you can't just farm over and over and over.

So far, and I am still early, I think I died twice. One right at the beginning when I tried punching a rat thing and then a bunch more I didn't see came running. Then I died another time trying to get a shiny that was too far of a drop. Other than that, I am doing great, but I just recently beat both Dark Souls and Demons Souls. My time with Dark Souls made Demons Souls easier and I think that stays true with Dark Souls 2. If you've got some experience with the game, you know what to look out for. I will say that combat has felt different and tricks I tried in the other games with melee didn't seem to work as well here. But, in this game, I went with a magic user to just do something different, so I tend to just soul arrow things.

If you were a fan of Demon's Souls/Dark Souls then you will love this one. If you didn't like them or thought they were too hard, this one will not change your opinion. Having to learn new tactics to deal with enemies might make it feel tougher at first, but you quickly get over that. One of the classes can take a decent amount of punishment before dying too which makes it a good toon to start with.

Played a ton of this the last few days, was taking the slightly harder route of dual wield and practically no armor. For days I was dodging everything like a ninja, then today I log on and seemingly can't time shit. Frustrating sometimes. lol

Poison and Bleed are crazy good in pvp btw, as are the fist and claw weapons. Bit disappointed in the katanas this time through, a bit slow for me. I've been primarily dual wielding rapiers for the speed and reach, but the lack of horizontal slashes definitely hurts, especially in pvp at times. Dual whips is silly fun too. I probably should just go back to sword/dagger and shield though, it's far easier to use and more effective overall. There's just something about the double thrust with both weapons, major damage and in my case apply bleed AND poison, one from each blade. Would have to give up bleed I think if I dropped dual wield.

tough choice. Bleed in pvp when it triggers makes them take a chunk of hp AND lowers their max stamina, lowers stam regen and makes them walk slower. That's huge. Poison on the other hand pretty much saps anyone's health bar in under 10 seconds when it builds up and goes off.

Oh, one change which I am not so sure about yet as I haven't run into it, but thinking about it, not sure I like is that enemies will only respawn so many times. So you can't just farm over and over and over.

According to the Gamespot review, regarding the respawning -

Quote

The grinding opportunities are still there, and there are in-game items that force enemies in a given region to begin respawning again (and make them more powerful, to boot).

Logged

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